There are several books that I recommend over and over again to my coaching clients. Mastering Creative Anxiety by Eric Maisel would have to be one of my top three most recommended books for artists.

This book serves up 24 helpful lessons on dealing with creative anxiety. I like to describe it as your personal menu for getting unstuck. Indeed, Maisel includes an ‘anxiety mastery menu’ throughout.

In this post, I also want to bring attention to how we have fears that are often hidden.

If you’re doing any of the following things, it’s quite likely you have some hidden fears or anxieties that are interfering with you doing your best work.

Symptoms include:

• Procrastination
• Avoiding the things you know you should be doing such as marketing or sitting down to do your creative work
• Indecision
• Not finishing projects (they suddenly don’t seem so important or ‘everything else’ gets in the way)
• Saying ‘yes’ to other people’s agendas often at the expense of your own creative work
• Diminishing the value of your creative work as ‘not so important’ or ‘not mattering’
• Criticising yourself or your work (self-criticism is often a form of self-protection)

Maisel’s book is one of the best sourcebooks to have at hand for the day-to-day battle of facing your fears, taking risks and continuing to step out of your comfort zone as you create your work.

This book helps you get back on track fast. If you find yourself feeling stuck you can simply open up to the neatly organised contents page and choose the chapter that most closely fits with the challenge you’re currently facing.

Each chapter has an introduction to a particular fear, a ‘to-do’ checklist with practical steps on how to overcome the fear, a teaching tale, a useful anxiety management tool and a motto, affirmation or vow to help you commit to moving past the fear that is blocking you.

Example topics include:

• The Anxiety of Choosing
• The Anxiety of Identity
• The Anxiety of Day Jobs
• The Anxiety of Promoting
• The Anxiety of Ruining
• The Anxiety of Failing
• The Anxiety of Procrastinating
• The Anxiety of Success

One of my favourite anxiety management techniques that he recommends is ‘Improved Appraising’ from the chapter on choosing the creative life. Here Eric Maisel guides you through how to better assess how dangerous the creative risks you are taking actually are:

“You examine situations, you analyze them, and you decide if your initial feelings of anxiety are really warranted. Nine times out of ten you will see that they are not, that they are about as threatening as having to decide whether to serve cookies or finger sandwiches.”

He follows this up with the helpful ‘To Do’:

“Change your mind about the threat level of things. If you are used to warning bells going off all the time, change their setting and rig them to go off only when the threat is real and significant.” (p. 58).

Consider this book part of your creative life daily support team.

Find it on Amazon here (affiliate link):

Mastering Creative Anxiety: 24 Lessons for Writers, Painters, Musicians, and Actors from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach